The seeds for the MIAA football state tournaments were released on Monday, and as expected, Greenfield was the lone area program that punched its ticket to the dance.
The Green Wave (6-2) earned the No. 13 seed in the Div. 7 tournament and will travel to Whitinsville to take on No. 4 Northbridge on Friday at 7 p.m.
“We’re happy to be there in the tournament,” Greenfield coach Mike Kuchieski said. “We’ll get our guys ready to play.”
The Green Wave were bumped up from a Div. 8 to Div. 7 alignment in the new state format thanks to its cooperative program that also includes Turners Falls, Mohawk Trail and Pioneer. The Rams (7-1) will provide one of the toughest challenges Greenfield has faced all season.
Northbridge went undefeated in the abbreviated 2020 season and in 2019, won the Central Mass. Div. 5 title before falling to Amherst in the Div. 5 state semifinals. The Rams won one of their 10 Super Bowls in 2015.
According to the Rams roster on maxpreps.com, Northbridge has 23 seniors on its roster. To put that in perspective, the Green Wave have 26 total players.
“They have almost as many seniors as we do players,” Kuchieski said. “It’ll be a challenge but our kids are up for the challenge. We’re looking forward to being in the tournament and looking forward to seeing what we can do.”
Northbridge played a tough regular season schedule. Only two of its wins came against non-playoff teams while the Rams sport victories over Div. 6 tournament teams No. 6 Blackstone (18-14) and No. 10 Oakmont (32-13). Northbridge defeated three Div. 7 tournament teams, beating No. 5 West Boylston (22-20), No. 12 St. Bernard’s (34-12) and No. 14 Leicester (27-14).
The Rams’ only loss came against Grafton (28-20), which is the No. 4 seed in the Div. 4 tournament.
Believe it or not, a Recorder area football team has played Northbridge in the postseason. Frontier and Northbridge squared off in the 1997 Div. 3 Super Bowl, with the Rams capturing a 38-20 victory.
■ The final 2021 Power Rankings had Frontier as the No. 13 team in Div. 8, but with just two victories on the season the Redhawks didn’t meet the minimum criteria of three wins to make the postseason. Athol (2-6) finished No. 21 in Div. 8 while Franklin Tech (3-5) closed at No. 23 and Mahar (1-7) finished No. 26.
Frontier will travel to Athol to play the Bears in a non-playoff game on Thursday. Mahar hosts Smith Vocational on Thursday and Pathfinder will travel to Turners on Friday to take on Franklin Tech.
■Volleyball brackets were not available at deadline Monday, while field hockey and soccer will be announced today.